Abstract

Morton Feldman's "Rothko Chapel" is a piece whose genesis is indissolubly linked to a person, the painter Mark Rothko to whom the piece is dedicated, and a place, the Rothko chapel. Starting with a few brief analytic references of the composer's, this article will seek to divide the piece into constituent parts on the basis of musical and non-musical evidence, with particular reference, for the latter, to certain "key numbers" inferred from the structure of the Rothko chapel.